Newspaper Page Text
The Rrd and Black
Thuraday, April 22, IXt2
Page 4
The Red and Black
GCPA
Established 1893 — Incorporated 1980
Charles II. Russell, General Manager
Mack Browning, Editor-in-chief Tim Bonner, Managing Editor
An independent student newspaper not affiliated with the University of Georgia
More ‘sunshine *
Once again, Gov George Busbee has proven
himself one of the staunchest supporters of the
principle of freedom of the press.
Tuesday, Busbee signed a bill greatly ex
panding Georgia’s sunshine law requiring all
government bodies to give notice of planned
meetings and keep public records of their
decisions.
Busbee sponsored the first Georgia sunshine
law in 1974 when he was a member of the
Georgia House of Representatives.
The old law simply required that these
meetings be open to the public when conducting
public business, except for special cases when
personnel matters would be discussed.
Too often, government bodies elude the
watching eyes of the media by classifying topics
for discussion as “personnel matters,” or by
meeting for a token few minutes only to
reschedule meetings at an irregular time —
avoiding the press. Legally, these government
bodies were not always at fault because the
media did not know about the rescheduled
meeting
Under the new law signed by Busbee Tuesday,
bodies who schedule meetings at an irregular
time would have to give 24 hours notice. In an
emergency session, as much notice as possible
must be given. Officials who dodge open
meeting law requirements are subject to a $100
fine.
The new law is an important step to keep
government from operating behind the backs of
the people. The law should, at least, make our
job that much easier.
13-0!a
Who would have thought the Atlanta Braves
would have replaced Herschel Walker as the top
sports story. Even in Athens, where sports
fiends are used to seeing Walker dash up and
down the football field, and G-Day only a few
days away, the talk is baseball. Baseball.
The Atlanta Braves have made spring fun
again for baseball fanatics. Spring in Atlanta
and surrounding areas used to mean anything
but Braves baseball. Even though the season is
barely two weeks old, visions of pennant are
vivid in most minds. Sure, it’s too early to tell,
but winning now sure is fun.
Return power to the people
Whatever happened to Proposition
13?
Almost four years ago, it was passed
by a two-to-one margin and property
taxes for California homeowners were
slashed by almost two-thirds
Californians had watched helplessly
as taxes on their households
skyrocketed during the 1970s By 1978,
the average family was paying a $2000
government bounty to the government
just in order to live in their own home!
To pay the high taxes, most families
were forced to sacrifice in other vital
areas: health care, savings for future
plans and hopes or a college education
for their children
Many were even forced to sell their
homes to pay off the government.
Nevertheless, liberal Democrats
campaigned feverishly against the tax
cut. Governor Jerry Brown called Pro
position 13 a ‘consumer fraud.”
Liberal economists called it a false
political gimmick that would destroy
California's economy and deprive its
citizens of essential services.
The voters ignored the liberals. They
wanted to keep their homes
And four years later, it is clear that
the critics who adamantly defended the
liberal welfare state were wrong
There were temporary and transi
tional dislocations. Over 100,000 state
and local government jobs were
eliminated as a result of Proposition 13.
But the tax cut stimulated the crea
tion of 552,000 new private sector jobs
for any temporarily displaced govern
ment workers.
Essential services like police and fire
protection have been preserved and
even upgraded. Many local govern
ments have also privatized social ser
vices and garbage collection. Predic
tably, private and charitable organiza
tions are providing better service more
efficiently.
Most important, families and
homeowners are once again financially
secure They are free from the con-
fiscitory taxes that nearly destroyed
their hopes for the future.
UCLA economist David Schulman
readily admits his error: "I was one
who predicted that California would fall
into the ocean if the voters said 'yes' to
Proposition 13. I waited after the elec
tion for the earthquake, and it didn’t
happen "
What did happen is what always oc
curs when taxes are cut and govern
ment quits trying to solve our problems
for us
California's economy has enjoyed ex
plosive growth and rediscovered its job-
creating capacity. Personal income
and creation of jobs now exceed the na
tional average.
But the success of Proposition 13 is
more than just a reaffirmation of the
historical success of cutting taxes
It is a prototypical transition from the
liberal welfare state, with its con-
fiscitory taxes and big government, to a
conservative, opportunity society.
California voters demanded a conser
vative opportunity society long before
the widely misunderstood Laffer curve
became a household word
Indeed, it is disturbing that the issue
of tax relief has subsequently been
clouded by an academic discussion of
rival economic theories.
People don't care about economic
theories. They just want to be allowed
to keep what they earn.
Therefore, the compelling reason for
cutting taxes is to shift power away
from the liberal welfare state and back
to the people where it belongs.
Such was the guiding spirit behind the
fight for Proposition 13. It is this spirit
that America must recapture as a na
tion.
The conservative opportunity society
is based on the fundamental belief that
people know how to spend their earn
ings better than the government does.
That is one belief that Californians —
and all Americans — can find hope in.
Ralph Reed is a junior in the College of
Arts and Sciences.
Abortion now infanticide
Last week, an Indiana couple let their
baby boy die. The child, who was
severely retarded, had a deformity of
the esophagus which prevented
nourishment from reaching his
stomach. The parents, after conferring
with doctors, decided to forego an
operation to repair the deformity. They
ordered that the boy not be given any
food, and the Indiana Supreme Court
upheld their decision.
When people in a society think of
themselves as animals, they act like
animals. Of course, people are rational
animals so they come up with con
vincing reasons for their inhumane
behavior. The parents of this child
(along with their doctors and the In
diana Supreme Court) might have
reasoned that, since the child was
retarded, he would not have led a happy
life. But how would they know? A
retarded person may suffer a lot of
rejection, but so do most intelligent
people. A mentally retarded person is a
person despite his handicap
The rationalizations do not change
the nature of the behavior. The
behavior shows supreme disrespect for
human life. Evidently, the parents
realized this. They wanted to be left
alone "so they could live with their
decision,” according to their attorney.
While “Infant Doe" lay starving, a
Canadian teacher of the mentally
retarded and another Indiana couple
offered to adopt the child. “I believe
every person, no matter who or what
his age, has a right to live," said the
Canadian teacher. "If need be, I'll pay
for the operation. I’m not well off, but
I'd pay for it and bring the baby back to
Canada," he said.
The Indiana couple who offered to
adopt the child hired a lawyer to seek
the baby's adoption. "I have a daughter
with Down's Syndrome, and they are
very loving babies," the mother said.
"Even if the baby lives only six months
or a year, it should be given a chance to
live and be loved," she said.
Two lawyers fought to keep the boy
alive against the parents' wishes. They
sought a temporary restraining order
authorizing medical treatment and food
for the boy while they appealed the
Indiana Supreme Court’s decision.
However, a special judge denied the
order. U.S Supreme Court Justice John
Paul Stevens was to hear the case the
day the baby died.
There is no way to be certain of what
the Supreme Court’s decision would
have been. But if the 1973 Roe v, Wade
decision is any indication of its present
stance, the Court would probably have
allowed the baby to starve
In the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v.
Wade decision, the court legalized
abortion on demand The decision
granted women an absolute right to
abortion during the first six months of
pregnancy and an almost unqualified
right to abortion during the final three
months of pregnancy In the final three
months abortions are allowed for
“health" reasons, with health defined
to include psychological, social and
economic well-being. Over a million
abortions per year have been per
formed since the Roe v. Wade decision.
The Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade
decision is probably one of the
precedents which allowed last week's
infanticide to take place. Dr. C. Everett
Koop, then Surgeon-in-Chief at the
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia,
told the American Academy of
Pediatrics in 1976 that: “In 1973
abortion of somewhere between a
million and two million unborn babies a
year would lead to such cheapening of
human life that infanticide would not be
far behind." And this is just what has
happened.
The Roe v. Wade decision justifies the
highest disrespect for the value of
human life. It suggests that the
mother’s psychological, social and
economic well-being, or convenience, is
more important than the baby’s life It
should not surprise us that infanticide is
now taking place.
The 1973 decision suggests that the
unborn baby is not a living being, but
merely an appendage to the woman's
body. However, an overwhelming
amount of scientific evidence suggests
otherwise. From the moment a new life
is conceived, independent cells develop
according to a pattern which is totally
different from that of its mother.
The unborn baby, though dependent
on the mother, is a living person as any
baby after birth.
West Germany passed a law per
mitting abortion on demand, but it
caused such a decrease in respect for
life that the law was repealed. We, also,
must not allow this contempt for the
value of life to continue. We should not
allow abortion or infanticide to con
tinue. We must stop, what is in effect,
the murder of innocent children. As
Thomas Jefferson said: “The care of
human life and happiness, and not their
destruction, is the first and only
legitimate object of good government.”
The first step is to pass a con
stitutional amendment reversing Roe
v. Wade.
Bart Parker is a senior in the School of
Journalism.
Letters
‘Ability not the only basis for choosing cheerleaders’
TO THE EDITOR:
1 was quite amused by the letter in
Wednesday's paper concerning
cheerleaders for I am a cheerleader
myself While there are parts of the
anonymous letter that 1 agree with,
there are still other parts where the
author knew little of what they were
talking
Even though the letter stated that the
author wasn't putting down the old
cheerleaders, it proceeded to talk about
how little talent the current
cheerleaders have Allow me to educate
you on their lack of talent
Sure, you haven’t seen Georgia's
squad on television as one of Ihe top five
squads in the annual cheerleader cham
pionships, but that doesn’t mean that
they're not talented Of the four years
that I’ve been at the University, our
squad has been rated eighth and sixth
on two of these years You won't see us
in the championships this year because
they weren't held, but you're welcome
to come see the videotape we made and
I'm sure you’ll agree we would have
been chosen as one of the top five had a
competition been held
At camp this summer, we were rated
in the top seven squads out of the ap-
f iroximately 70 present After camp, on-
y 30 applications were handed out to
the nearly 700 cheerleaders present to
teach at National Cheerleading
Association camps this summer At last
count, nine Georgia cheerleaders had
been offered jobs to teach camps this
summer.
Each year a squad of All-America
cheerleaders is selected from all the
squads in the country This squad con
sists of 20 cheerleaders and Georgia's
Doug Padgett was among them this
year. You know, this is not a bad list of
accomplishments for a group who
"doesn't even have enough coordina
tion and ability to run a straight line."
While watching the cheerleaders, say
at a basketball game, it's easy to sit in
the stands and criticize Georgia's
squad You think that they're un-
talented and lack the ability to do
anything exciting We’re limited by the
SEC and the athletic department as to
w hat we can and can't do For example,
we can't use the mini-trampoline and
can t build pyramids over two-high like
many of the squads you see on televi
sion do
Ability is a basis for selection to the
squad, but there are other things used
for selection also Personality, for ex
ample, is used for selection of
cheerleaders Why? College
cheerleaders help with recruiting the
Herschel Walkers and the Buck Belues
and they also do some public relations
work.
After disagreeing with you on several
points, I will agree with you somewhat
on one of them There are some
"politics” involved in cheerleader
tryouts. I've been working with some of
the girls since late January and 1 know
that the prettiest, most-talented ones
with the best personalities aren't
always chosen It is a pity that other
things sometimes play a part in the
cheerleader selections However, when
you get down to 15 or 20, it's hard to
make a selection, and any of the re
maining girls could make good
cheerleaders.
MAX GR1ZZARD
Varsity Cheerleader
4 Media silent 9
TO THE EDITOR:
It is strange that our major media
will wail to high heaven about the
slightest violation of human rights in
any country in the world, except one.
Israel confiscates Arab property,
shoots Palestinian demonstrators,
blows up their houses, physically
removes duly elected Arab mayors of
occupied towns, and otherwise uses
brutal methods of repression against
the Palestinians, but few U.S. editors,
columnists of commentators will write
or utter any criticism concerning this.
Surely they don't approve of these
vicious violations of human rights: no
fairminded person could do so Then
why don't we read or hear their
criticism, their condemnation?
T.J. CAMPBELL
COMFORTABLE IGNORANCE
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CATHOLIC,
THEV tCRSI
Editorial: 543-1809
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n>»i editor Jan llullings
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Fleming
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